U.S. Aircraft Carrier Killer: China deploys anti-ship ballistic missile along southern coast, facing Taiwan

April 20, 2013 – CHINA – The Chinese military has deployed its new anti-ship ballistic missile along its southern coast facing Taiwan, the Pentagon’s top military intelligence officer said today. The missile, designated the DF-21D, is one of a “growing number of conventionally armed” new weapons China is deploying to the region, adding to more than 1,200 short-range missiles opposite the island democracy, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, said in a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Flynn’s reference to the DF-21D follows one made by U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, in congressional testimony on April 9. He highlighted the “initial deployment of a new anti-ship missile that we believe is designed to target U.S. aircraft carriers.” Flynn’s brief reference to the DF-21D today is significant because it advances the DIA’s assessment last year, when U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, then the agency’s director, said China’s military is “probably preparing to deploy” the weapon. The disclosure may spark increased scrutiny in Congress this year about the vulnerability of the Navy’s aircraft carriers, including the new Gerald R. Ford class being built by Newport News, Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. The Navy estimates that the first new carrier will cost at least $12.3 billion, and the service’s budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 includes $1.68 billion for new aircraft carriers, more than double this year’s $781.7 million request. Of that, $945 million would pay for continued design and construction of the second Ford-class carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational testing, warned in his January 2012 annual report that the Navy lacked a target needed to check its defenses against the DF-21D. [link to theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com]